“ ‘No longer give yourselves to idle rest And pleasant slumber; we are to depart. The gracious Circè counsels us to go.’
“I spake, and easily their generous minds Inclined to me. Yet brought I not away All my companions safely from the isle. Elpenor was the youngest of our band, Not brave in war was he, nor wise in thought. He, overcome with wine, and for the sake Of coolness, had lain down to sleep, apart From all the rest, in Circè’s sacred house; And as my friends bestirred themselves, the noise And tumult roused him; he forgot to come By the long staircase; headlong from the roof He plunged; his neck was broken at the spine, And his soul went to the abode of death.
“My friends came round me, and I said to them:— ‘Haply your thought may be that you are bound For the dear country of your birth; but know That Circè sends us elsewhere, to consult The Theban seer, Tiresias, in the abode Of Pluto and the dreaded Proserpine.’
“I spake, and their hearts failed them as they heard; They sat them down, and wept, and tore their hair, But fruitless were their sorrow and their tears.
“Thus as we sadly moved to our good ship Upon the seashore, weeping all the while, Circè, meantime, had visited its deck, And there had bound a ram and a black ewe By means we saw not; for what eye discerns The presence of a deity, who moves From place to place, and wills not to be seen?”